The Abandoned Narcotic: Kava and Cultural Instability in Melanesia

Ron Brunton

doi:10.1017/CBO9780511557958

Ron Brunton revives a problem posed by the great anthropologist W. H. R. Rivers in History of Melanesian Society (1914): how to explain the strange geographical distribution of kava, a narcotic drink once widely consumed by south-west Pacific islanders. Rivers believed that it was abandoned by many people even before European contact in favour of another drug, betel, drawing his speculations from the ideas of the diffusionist school of anthropology. However, Dr Brunton disagrees. Taking the varying fortunes of kava on the island of Tanna, Vanauta, as his starting point, he suggests that kava's abandonment can best be explained in terms of its association with unstable religious cults, and not because of the adoption of betel. The problem of kava is therefore part of a broader problem of why many traditional Melanesian societies were characteristically highly unstable, and Dr Brunton sees this instability as both an outcome and a cause of weak institutions of authority and social coordination.

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The Abandoned Narcotic

Kava and Cultural Instability in Melanesia

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Contents

Frontmatter
pp i-iv

Contents
pp v-v

List of illustrations and tables
pp vi-vi

Acknowledgements
pp vii-viii

1 - Introduction: W.H.R. Rivers and kava
pp 1-6

2 - The traditional distribution of kava drinking
pp 7-26

3 - Reconsidering Rivers' argument: the evidence
pp 27-74

4 - Reconsidering Rivers' argument: assessment and implications
pp 75-94

5 - Kava on Tanna: traditional ritual and contemporary modifications
pp 95-113

6 - Kava on Tanna: the development of secular patterns of consumption
pp 114-128

7 - The problems of Tannese society
pp 129-167

8 - Conclusion
pp 168-178

List of references
pp 179-203

Glossary of Tannese words
pp 204-205

Index
pp 206-216

Cambridge Studies in Social Anthropology
pp 217-219

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The Abandoned Narcotic

Kava and Cultural Instability in Melanesia

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